Re: Dijkstra's Methodology for Secure Systems Development

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Taylan Ulrich Bayirli/Kammer <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden,  address@hidden,  address@hidden
> Date: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 18:45:49 +0200
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Evil is not about right and wrong.  Evil is about moral and immoral,
> > lawful and unlawful.  If you don't understand the fundamental
> > difference between those categories, perhaps you should refrain from
> > talking about Hitler, Stalin, and bombardment of civilians.
> 
> If any of those words have well-defined semantics in a widely accepted
> school of thought, then I didn't know that.

And "right" and "wrong", do they have well-defined semantics?  No,
they don't, and yet you used them freely to make your point.  How's
that for consistency?

Your point was that villains act thinking they are doing the "right"
thing.  But that's exactly the weakness of "right" and "wrong": they
are intrinsically POV-relative.  When you and me have a conflict of
interests, what is "right" for you is "wrong" for me, and vice versa.

Use the words I suggested, and this problem disappears, even if others
remain.

> (Except for laws, though I'm confused on how they're relevant at
> all.)

Perhaps you don't understand why we have laws, then.

> I was simply going on the assumption that we all agree on
> ethics based on human well-being

Oh, come on, grow up!  This kind of naiveté will get you nowhere.
Tell me: when someone shoots a burglar who broke into their house and
threatened them with a weapon, what exactly happens to the "human
well-being" of the burglar?

> It would follow that we need to be careful not to give power to
> those disagreeing with that.  If the assumption was wrong, then
> never mind.

We can all agree on this assumption, but the question is what do you
do in practice with that?